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Teacher effectiveness focus of new project

By {screen_name}
Tuesday, August 17, 2010

A $1 million effort to make Colorado teachers and principals more effective launched Monday with an announcement in Denver.

The Colorado Educator Effectiveness Project will combine an $800,000 grant from the Denver-based Rose Community Foundation and $200,000 worth of private donations to fund efforts by the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Legacy Foundation and The New Teacher Project to research and promote effective education practices, according to a press release from the department of education.

The announcement intersects with time lines for other educator effectiveness efforts, including the Educator Identifier Project and Senate Bill 191. The bill, signed into law this year and scheduled for implementation in all Colorado schools in fall 2013, ups the frequency of seasoned teacher evaluations and would remove a teacher’s nonprobationary status after two consecutive years being rated ineffective.

The Educator Identifier Project, being implemented this year and next year in phases, is a partnership between stakeholders and the Colorado Department of Education that uses data from teachers across the state to see which teachers are effective, based on student performance, and track teacher mobility, retention and recruitment.

Monday’s announcement comes just six days after representatives from Colorado presented the state’s case for Race to the Top funding to reviewers in Washington, D.C. The state is one of 19 finalists in the competition for a portion of more than $3 billion in federal grant money being given to states that demonstrate current practices and future goals conducive with education reform. Winners of the second and final round of Race to the Top will be announced in September.

Colorado Education Commissioner Dwight Jones said in a statement that the educator effectiveness project complements the state’s Race to the Top application, but he said the state is committed to having effective teachers and principals regardless of what happens with the Race to the Top challenge.